


it's like you hit me with lightning.

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: tumblr fics & ficlets. [9]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Femslash February, Femslash February Trope Bingo, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Seriously, do I have to do this?" </p>
<p>"Rebecca, nobody goes to an open house by themselves," Lila sighs.  "Can you at least <i>try</i> to have fun?  Smile!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's like you hit me with lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 'fake relationship' square on my femslash february femtrope bingo card. (:
> 
> title from the song [Starry Eyed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBf2v4mLM8k) by Ellie Goulding.

If there's one thing Rebecca can't stand, it's being woken up by the sound of her phone going off. 

Usually, she puts the thing on vibrate when she sleeps but last night, somewhere between the whiskey and the weed, she apparently forgot to do that. It sounds like it's mere inches away from her pounding head and, without opening her eyes, she gropes around until she finds it lying on the other pillow. She considers just letting it ring but there's a chance it might be someone looking to score and, considering that rent's due in two days and she's only worked a few hours at the bar in the last two weeks, she needs all the money she can get. 

As soon as she hears the chipper voice coming through the speaker, she regrets picking up. 

"Good morning sleepyhead!" 

"Lila, what the hell do you want?" Rebecca groans, rolling onto her back. 

"Sounds like _somebody_ had a rough night," Lila says, clucking her tongue. "Are you too hungover to bring some stuff?" 

"What kind of stuff?" Rebecca asks, doing a quick mental inventory of what all she has hidden under her bathroom sink. As infuriating as Lila's ridiculous upbeat voice may be, especially this early in the day, the girl always pays up for what she buys. 

"Some weed would be nice. I already went through the stuff you brought me last week." 

"Anything else?" Lila hums and clucks her tongue again. The noise makes Rebecca's head throb even harder. 

"Nope, I'm good for now. See you in a bit!" Rebecca mumbles a response and hangs up, tossing her phone back across the bed. The inside of her mouth tastes disgusting and her eyes feel stiff with yesterday's makeup. There's nothing she wants more than to go back to sleep but she knows from experience that if she doesn't show up at Lila's within the next hour, the girl will just call her back and whine about her 'poor customer service skills.' So she cracks her eyes open, swings her legs out of bed and pads across the floor, avoiding the sticky patches where somebody spilled alcohol last night. 

She looks about as good as she feels; her hair is a tangled mess and, as she expected, her makeup is streaked halfway down her cheeks. But she's pretty sure that Lila expects no different so she wipes off the worst of the mess on her face, runs her fingers through her hair a few times and pulls on a pair of jeans from her floor that only have a few holes in them.

As always, Lila has left the back door of the sorority house open for her and she makes her way up to the rooftop. Lila is sitting on the edge, swinging her feet back and forth. As soon as Rebecca shuts the door, Lila whips around and grins. Between the brightness of the sun and the brightness of Lila's smile, Rebecca really wishes that she'd been able to find a pair of sunglasses in her apartment. She took two pain pills before she left, but they haven't even begun to kick in yet. 

"How are you feeling?" Lila asks, smile turning into a smirk. Rebecca flips her off. 

"You're lucky you're one of my best customers," she grumbles, pulling the small package of weed out of the inside pocket of her leather jacket. In turn, Lila reaches into her tank top and pulls a few folded bills out of her bra. She tucks them into Rebecca's hand and Rebecca tries very hard not to notice how warm the money is. 

"Do you want some before you leave?" Lila asks, reaching for a pack of rolling papers that are sitting on the ledge of the roof. "It might help with your hangover." 

Going back to sleep would _also_ help with Rebecca's hangover, but she's not about to pass up free weed. Besides, now that it's no longer hers, she doesn't have to feel bad about dipping into her own product. 

"Yeah, sure. It's not like I have anything else to do today." 

"You get grumpy when you're tired. You're just like Griffin." 

"I'm nothing like your damn boyfriend," Rebecca snaps. If Lila's offended, she doesn't show it. She simply shrugs and goes back to rolling a joint, humming a tune under her breath. She doesn't speak again until they've smoked half the thing, passing it back and forth while sitting in the shade thrown by the roof's water tank. 

"What _are_ you doing after this?" Lila asks, brushing ashes off her yoga pants. 

"Nothing. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said that," Rebecca answers. The weed is starting to help her headache, but her mouth still tastes gross. "Why?" 

"I wanna show you something." Lila leaps to her feet and moves back to the edge of the roof. Once Rebecca follows, Lila points to a house down the street, a sprawling building that looks like something a professor would live in. 

"See that place?"

"Yeah. What's so special about it?" 

"It's honestly the most gorgeous house on this entire block. I've always wondered what it looked like inside and today, they're having an open house for it. I want to go." For a few moments, Rebecca really doesn't understand why Lila is telling her all this. But then she looks up again and sees the raised eyebrow and pouty lips and it all makes sense. 

"Why do you want _me_ to come?" she asks, looking back down at the house. It's nice looking, she has to admit, but that doesn't mean she wants to go traipsing through it. "Is Griffin too busy with his frat buddies?" 

"He wouldn't understand," Lila scoffs, rolling her eyes. Truth be told, Rebecca doesn't understand either. 

"What about one of the other girls? They can't _all_ be busy." 

" _Becca_ ," Lila says, voice halfway between a whine and a plea. "C'mon. Are you really that scared of being seen with me?" Every response Rebecca comes up with just ends up trailing off into stammers. It'd always been Lila insisting they meet on the roof, insisting that they pretend not to know each other if they meet on the street. She has no idea where this sudden change has come from but, even with the weed mellowing her out, it throws her for a loop. 

"Fine," she finally mutters. "But you owe me." 

"Deal," Lila grins, pulling another bill out of her bra and shoving it into Rebecca's pocket. She takes one last pull from the joint before she pops it back between Rebecca's lips and heads for the door leading downstairs. 

"Be back in a minute!" 

Rebecca groans again. The next time her phone wakes her up, she's throwing it across the room.

&. 

"Seriously, do I have to do this?"

"Rebecca, nobody goes to an open house by themselves," Lila sighs. "Can you at least _try_ to have fun? Smile!" Rebecca just raises an eyebrow but Lila refuses to stop staring at her so, with a sigh, she bares her teeth in something approximating a smile. Lila just rolls her eyes again and threads her arm through Rebecca's, pulling her up the sidewalk towards the house. 

"I bet that you would look really pretty if you actually smiled," she says. "You should try it sometime." Thankfully, Rebecca is saved from coming up with a response, because Lila immediately fixates on a flower bed. 

There are a few other people circulating throughout the house, murmuring to their partners or jotting down notes. In the living room, there's a table set up with a variety of tiny pastries and fruit and while Lila coos over the wall color, Rebecca shoves a mini muffin into her mouth. She doesn't know if it's the lack of breakfast or if she's getting the munchies but either way, she's starving. 

"Can I help you?" When Lila whips around, she takes Rebecca with her. A woman that Rebecca assumes is the realtor is standing in front of them. There's an obviously fake smile plastered on her face and her eyes are narrowed. 

"Oh, hi!" Lila says. She sounds so damn bubbly that it makes Rebecca's head hurt again. "My girlfriend and I were just admiring the color scheme of this room. It's gorgeous, right hun?" Lila turns and presses a kiss to Rebecca's cheek, a mere inch away from her mouth. 

"Um. Yeah," Rebecca manages to spit out after a few seconds. She knows what Lila is doing; she's playing another one of her games, spinning one of her childish tales. But even though it's fake, Rebecca's cheek feels like it's on fire, for reasons she _really_ isn't drunk enough to think about. 

"We recently came into some money," Lila continues, lowering her voice and leaning closer to the realtor, like she's telling the woman a secret. "There was a death in the family." 

"My uncle Rudy," Rebecca blurts out. Lila squeezes her arm tightly, but Rebecca can't tell if it's an encouraging action or if Lila is telling her to shut up. "Cancer, unfortunately." 

"I'm very sorry to hear that!" the realtor gasps. Her plastic smile is definitely melting a bit. 

"Thank you," Lila answers, lowering her head briefly. "But he left us some money and we're beginning to maybe think about starting a family. We hear this is an excellent neighborhood."

Rebecca's stomach drops into the floor. When the realtor turns to look at her, she plasters on the biggest grin she can muster and apparently, it's convincing. 

"Well, if it's safety you're looking for, you can't beat this neighborhood! Let me show you around the rest of the house!" 

It takes twenty minutes for the realtor to take them through the four bedrooms, the three bathrooms and the other rooms in between. The entire time, Lila keeps up their charade. She makes comments about the thickness of the carpets they walk on, runs her fingers over the counters in the kitchen, even asks about the state of the house's plumbing. Occasionally, she prompts Rebecca to agree with her and Rebecca nods and smiles. 

In those twenty minutes, Lila kisses Rebecca four more times. By the last one, even though the house is plenty airy, Rebecca feels like she's suffocating. 

Once they get back outside, Lila drops Rebecca's arm and starts giggling, glancing back at the house over her shoulder. 

"Wasn't that _fun_?" she asks. "We should do that again sometime!" 

"I have to go," Rebecca mutters and, even as Lila says something else, she turns and walks away, hands shoved into her pockets. Her phone vibrates three times on the way back to her apartment and each time, she steadfastly ignores it. Once she gets back inside, she shrugs her jacket off and falls back onto her bed, shoving her face under her pillow. She's been laying down for five minutes when her phone rings again and this time, as soon as she sees Lila's name on her screen, she turns her phone completely off and throws it across the room. 

Her headache's only gotten worse, but Rebecca knows that it has nothing to do with her hangover.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
